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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZPENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRAUK group formed late '70s by multi-instrumentalist, composer Simon Jeffes (b 19 February 1949; d 10 December 1997 of a brain tumour). He studied music in London late '60s, visited Japan '72; a friend gave him a tape of African music '73; he rejected experimental music because after a concert of it he still wanted to hear some music. Along the way he arranged strings for Sid Vicious's 'My Way', tutored Adam Ant on Burundi drumming, etc. He had a dream while suffering from food poisoning in France of a dictatorship where everybody stayed indoors surrounded by hi-fi equipment, and wrote a poem beginning, 'Hello, I am the proprietor of the Penguin Café. I will tell you things at random...' He formed the group '75, saying it was for 'people capable of enjoying Wilson Pickett, Beethoven, the Rolling Stones, choral music from West Africa, Bach, Stravinsky, Irish bagpipe music and even ABBA on the odd occasion'. Albums were on the EG label, originally by way of Brian Eno's Obscure label: Music From The Penguin Café and Penguin Café Orchestra '81, Broadcasting From Home '84 (including 'Music For A Found Harmonium', used in UK TV advert for new national daily paper the Independent '86), Signs Of Life '87, When In Rome (made at Royal Festival Hall); also Union Café '93 on Zopf, Concert Programme '94 live in Somerset on Windham Hill. The music sounds 'roughly like a string quartet letting its hair down at some mysteriously-located barn dance of the future', wrote Robert Sandall in the Sunday Times; it was a string band of up to seven people including Helen Liebman on cello, Gavyn Wright, Elizabeth Perry, Bob Loveday on violins, Steve Nye on keyboards, Neil Rennie on cuatro and ukulele; Jeffes playing everything including tape, plus other guests on percussion, etc. (Actually there were no guests, but visitors became members of the band during their visit.) Occasionally one wishes that a track led to something more, like a hot fiddle solo by Vassar Clements, but it is gently insidious, often foot-tapping music. Still Life At The Penguin Café was an album of Jeffes's music by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. By '96 Jeffes had relocated from West London to a house in Somerset where friends could come and make music; he felt that the band had taken on too much of an established pattern: compilation Preludes, Airs and Yodels -- A Penguin Café Primer '96 was intended to be the end of that. Concert Programme; Still Life was arranged by Jeffes and choreographed by David Bintley for the Royal Ballet. He also arranged for Baaba Maal and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Jeffes' son Arthur Jeffes revived the group in 2009; The new line-up included Becca Waterworth (cello), Andy Waterworth (double bass), Arthur Jeffes (piano, cuatros), Des Murphy (ukelele), Vince Greene (viola) Neil Coding (piano, ukelele), Tom Chichester-Clark (cuatro, guitar), Cass Browne (percussion) and Darren Berry (violin). they made one album for the charity Teenage Cancer Trust and had another planned for Autumn 2010. On 8 September 2010 they played a late-night Prom, with Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes; she had played with Simon in the original band.
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